


"Hawk...GAY?!--Avenger's Archer Seen Snuggling with Mystery Man at Yankees Game"

by AlyKat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 'accidental' outing, Attempt at public embarrassment, KissCam, M/M, Minor Bruce Banner/Tony Stark, Press and Tabloids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyKat/pseuds/AlyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Our last question is actually for you, Hawkeye.”</p><p>“Alright, go for it.”</p><p>“We’ve been told that you have a mysterious significant other. So tell us about this guy you've been seen around town with.”</p><p>God, there was no way this was happening...</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Hawk...GAY?!--Avenger's Archer Seen Snuggling with Mystery Man at Yankees Game"

**Author's Note:**

> Story inspired by a Jeremy Renner-Avengers interview gifset I'd seen on Tumblr where the last two gifs Jeremy looked kind of flustered and awkward. Which of course led to Ralkana and I trying to figure out what would cause that...and resulted in this story. 
> 
> Also, thanks to Ralkana for the beta-reading-greatness.

**The Inspiration for the Story.**

* * *

Clint sighed as he readjusted the sweater he’d been muscled into earlier, again, for the hundredth time. It was itchy, even over the pale lavender shirt he’d borrowed from Phil. He hated interviews. They were beyond pointless. It wasn’t like anyone ever noticed him anyway, and half the time he spent the entire interview just sitting at the end of the lineup, staring blankly at a spot on the wall, wishing he were anywhere but there.

Every once in a great while he’d get asked a question, though it was usually the same ones every time. “Why do people call you ‘Hawkeye’? Why do you use a bow? Why doesn’t your costume have sleeves? Isn’t that dangerous?” The questions used to be okay, he’d actually sit up a bit straighter when they finally acknowledged him. Now it was just a pain in the ass and he hated them.

“I swear to God, if they ask me what my ‘Super Power’ is, so help me, Phil, I’ll put a pen in their eye.” Clint growled, his right eye twitching ever so slightly as he tugged at his tie again.

A pair of hands appeared over his from behind just a moment before warm lips pressed at the spot behind his ear. Gently, the strong hands loosened the knot some before tucking the tails under the dark blue sweater and smoothing them both down.

“That won’t happen. I gave them a list of acceptable and unacceptable questions this time.” There was another kiss before those hands turned him by the shoulders until they were standing as nose-to-nose as they could with the slight height difference. A soft smile was playing on Phil’s lips as he ran his hands down over the sweater again, down Clint’s strong arms (carefully hidden under the sleeves), until he could link their fingers together lightly.

“I hate this sweater. It’s too hot. I don’t wanna wear it. Why do I even have to go in the first place?! No one ever asks me anything!”

“You love that sweater, you were just complaining about being cold not fifteen minutes ago, you don’t have time to change, and you have to go because the interviewer asked to meet with all of the Avengers. You, Natasha, Captain Rogers, Stark, Banner, even Thor is going to be there for this one.” Phil’s voice was quiet and gentle, a far cry from his all-business, don’t-fuck-with-me-Stark-I-can-kill-you-with-a-potato-chip, tone that everyone else was used to hearing.

But Clint Barton wasn’t ‘everyone else’. He was the only one who was allowed to see the relaxed side of Phil. Got to see him first thing in the morning before any coffee, when he stumbled from the bedroom and just blindly shuffled through the apartment in too-long-for-him sweatpants, a stolen T-shirt (one that Clint was going to have to steal back at some point) and his socks slipping off his feet. Well, Clint got to see that most mornings anyway, right before shimmying back up into a vent to get back to his own Tower Suite before anyone noticed he was gone.

“Couldn’t you go instead of me? Say I was sick or something? Or hell, just pretend to be me. Nobody’s gonna notice.”

Phil chuckled softly as he leaned in for a slow, lingering kiss. The tension ebbed out of Clint’s body at that; it always did whenever they kissed (which, in his opinion, was never often enough). As their lips slowly separated and there was space between them again, Phil’s smile grew just a bit more as he squeezed Clint’s hand and took a full step back.

“Get downstairs, Agent Barton. The others are waiting for you. You’ll do fine.”

“I hate you…”

Quiet laughter filled the bedroom as Clint grumbled and sulked out of the room.

“I love you, too, Clint.” Phil called back after his retreating form, huffing out another soft laugh as his suite’s door was closed forcefully behind the archer.  

* * *

 

Clint rolled his eyes and slumped just a bit in his seat. They’d been in the interview for twenty-minutes already and everyone but him had been asked questions. Even Bruce had been asked a few questions about his research and his time spent helping people in Calcutta, and yeah about ‘The Other Guy’. Steve was of course asked again about the serum and Erskine and how was he adapting to this new world he woke up in? Clint always laughed at that question because everyone always assumed Steve would have a hard time picking up things, but Clint knew the truth. Steve was smart before the serum,so post-serum? No, Steve wasn’t having any trouble adapting to the “new world”. He had a high tech StarkPhone and had it figured out on his own within three hours of getting it, he had a laptop, and he and Clint often played video games together. He really wasn’t the confused ‘Man-Out-of-Time’ everyone made him out to be.

Tony was being his typical obnoxiously charming and charismatic self, fielding any question that wasn’t supposed to be asked with humor and sarcasm and sass, usually resulting in flustering the poor interviewer. Thor was surprisingly charming as well, answering all of his questions bluntly and brutally honestly. It was another rumor that the man only knew how to shout and couldn’t speak at a normal and acceptable level. Yep, these idiots had never seen him with Jane, holding her close and actually murmuring things in her ear that no one else could hear (thank gods for that!).

Natasha took the interview like she would an undercover mission. She was polite and smiled sweetly, glancing down the line at the others every so often before answering a question. She didn’t joke or anything, but she was still more personable than people always made her out to be. No overly personal information was extracted from her, but then, that was probably due in part to Coulson’s carefully written list of Can/Can’t Asks.

Then there was Clint.

He’d spent most of his time counting ceiling tiles or imagining all the different ways he could get Phil undressed the fastest once they got let out of there. He was just imagining method number twenty-seven when Natasha jabbed him with her elbow. His eyes darted up in surprise, glancing first to her, and then to the interviewer when Nat gave him her ‘pay attention’ look.

“Our last question is actually for you, Hawkeye.” Amelia Adams smiled as she reached into a bag sitting next to her chair.

Clint’s eyes rolled while she wasn’t looking and he heaved a silent sigh, because really? Really? He had a name, people. His parents might not have been that great, but they definitely hadn’t named him Hawkeye. What was so hard about remembering Clint. Barton? Really. It was stupid. He shifted in his chair and readied himself for another edition of “What Overused and Stupid Question Can We Ask Him Today?”

“Alright, go for it.” His voice was gruff, the tone he’d take with baby agents who annoyed the ever-loving-fuck out of him. Ms. Adams sat back up and smiled at Clint as she settled a magazine on her lap, front down so it couldn’t be seen.

“We’ve been told that you have a mysterious significant other. So tell us about this guy you've been seen around town with.”

Clint’s eyebrows scrunched for just the briefest of moments as he sat up straight in his chair again and stared at the woman as if she’d suddenly grown another head. The eyes of his teammates all turned to him and he wished he’d told PR to go to hell and worn a T-shirt to this like he’d wanted to do. At least then maybe he wouldn’t feel like he was melting under the lights. There was a movement out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored it for now.

“That’s a statement, not a question.” He joked, and an easy but clearly fake smile fell across his face as he laughed and shifted in his seat again, turning to glance at the others before looking back to the woman. God, there was no way this was happening. He hadn’t even told Natasha about him and Coulson yet! How the hell could anyone have figured it out? It wasn’t like he was the one who was even remotely recognizable out of the team. He stayed up and out of the way, people rarely saw him and those who did would never have recognized him if they saw him on the street in his regular clothes.

Ms. Adams wasn’t detoured. She simply smiled brighter, the cat that ate the canary, and raised an eyebrow at him. Clint could still feel the surprised and questioning stares of his teammates on him; even Stark was quiet, waiting for an answer.

“Sources say you two have been seen together everywhere from Yankee Stadium to quiet little restaurants in Soho. Pretty little romantic restaurants at that.”

Clint’s fake and forced smile stayed in place as he laughed again, hoping it sounded natural but knowing that at least Natasha and Phil (because the damn man had finally shown up and was standing just off-camera watching the whole thing take place) would catch the nervous and uncomfortable lilt to it. Not sure of what to do, he sat a little straighter, glancing off camera towards Phil before quickly looking back down the line, hand absently coming up to play at the knot of his tie. It wasn’t like he and Phil were trying to hide their relationship from the others, it was just that, well, it was sort of an unspoken agreement that they’d come clean when they were ready to and frankly, they weren’t ready. Even if it had been over nine-and-a-half months since they’d become a couple.

“Uhhh…” He trailed off to laugh a bit nervously again and shrugged. “So…a guy can’t go out to a ball game or dinner with someone else without it being romantic somehow?”

“Well, actually, it was more the headline that caught our attention.” Ms. Adams lifted the magazine from her lap and held it out for Clint to take. He reached out for it and for a horrifying moment, Clint went stock still. It was a typical grocery store trash tabloid. Yet right there on the cover was a picture of him and Phil, both snuggled up against each other at Yankee Stadium, Phil with his head on Clint’s shoulder and face partially obscured by a ball cap, but it was clearly Coulson, and Clint’s arm around him gently.  Above the picture, in blaring, big red letters: _HAWK…GAY?!_ The magazine hadn’t hit the stands yet; the date in the corner was for the following week. It was just a proof someone had let leak out, but still. It was going to be out there soon and when it did get sent out...

Clint didn’t want to think about what might happen to him, or to Phil, if that issue ever saw the light of day.

From beside him, he heard the quiet, whispered, “… _Clint_ …” from Natasha. The tone reserved for when she felt bad for him about something. At the other end of the line, Tony was already getting out of his chair and making his way down to snatch the magazine from Clint. Blood was rushing through Clint’s ears in a thundering roar as he stared at where the paper had just been. Of all the different ways he’d thought they’d come clean to the others about their relationship, having it not only thrust onto the cover of tabloid trash but also shown on television was definitely not one of them and made him feel a little like the air was too thin to breathe.

“Holy shit…that’s Agent! Barton, you hound!” Tony’s eyes shot up past the interviewer to smile at the spot behind her where Coulson was already on his phone, face stern and no doubt threatening the life of whoever he was talking to. “Agent! You cradle robber, you! Aw, look how cute and comfy you two look.” Tony took the magazine further down the line until he was handing it to Bruce and sitting back down with a triumphant smile.

“So I’m guessing that means our sources were correct?” Ms. Adam’s smile was smug, her voice dripping with satisfaction. She’d gotten the scoop! She was going to be the first to report on the “first” gay Avenger! Obviously the woman was blind to how close Tony and Bruce were sitting and the fact Tony couldn’t keep his knee to himself through the whole interview. No, Clint wasn’t the first gay Avenger; he was just the first to be found out.

There was a flicker off camera, a pop and suddenly the studio went dark. The cameras died instantly and the red emergency lights slowly turned on around them. All six members of the team were on their feet, ready for action the second the lights went out, but once the emergency lights came on and nothing had happened, no one attacked, they relaxed a bit. Cameramen were already bitching about how they would have to record things over again, the director was throwing a fit in his control room trying to get the power back on so they could start from asking Hawkeye about the picture again, and in that moment Clint had never been so glad in all his life that they weren’t doing a live interview. Pre-recorded so the director and editors could sit back with their twisted grins later and show only what they wanted to show; manipulate the team’s answers and reactions to questions.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Adams,” a familiar voice said from the shadows. Clint hid his relief, and smiled as Phil stepped just barely into the dim red light, enough to keep his face mostly hidden and slightly sinister. “But I’m afraid the interview is over now. SHIELD will be confiscating the recordings of today for violation of our signed agreement.”

“What? I didn’t violate anything! You can’t do that!”

Clint could almost feel the smirk that he was sure was spreading across his boyfriend’s face.

“As a matter of fact, Ms. Adams, you did. If you’ll look on your list of acceptable questions and topics, you’ll see under Clint’s name  --and by the way, his full name is written there and was put there for a reason, ma’am. The fact you chose to call the others by their names but him by his callsign was a bit unprofessional, don’t you think?—it clearly states, ‘No stupid, inappropriate, or over-asked questions.’  Yours fell under stupid and inappropriate.”

Phil stepped completely out of the shadows and moved to stand face to face with the woman. It was almost laughable that the ‘mysterious’ man from the picture she’d presented Clint was standing right in front of her and yet she didn’t have a clue.

“And just who do you think you are?” Her voice was terse and tight, her posture defensive and standoffish.

“Agent Phil Coulson, of SHIELD. Current liaison for the Avengers and,” His smile turned almost predatory as he moved from standing in front of her to standing at Clint’s side. A warm swell of pride and love curled up in Clint’s chest as Phil placed his hand on Clint’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I also happen to be the ‘mysterious significant other’ you just tried to publically out and embarrass on national television.”

Ms. Adams’s face paled even in the dim red lights of the studio. Her eyes flicked between the two men before her, to the rest of the team, and back to the two men. Clint’s face had fallen to his natural ‘resting face’ as Natasha called it (‘Serious Panda’ if you were to ask Stark) and his arms were folded over his chest as he stared at her. He knew exactly how intense and threatening his expression could be (Phil had thrown so many pen caps at him for that look, accusing him of trying to set fire to his paperwork simply by staring it down), and he was using his stare to his advantage.

“This is ridiculous,” Ms. Adams’ hands flew up in a huff as she shook her head and leveled the two men with a cold glare. “I was only commenting on the article! There’s no harm in asking about if what was said was true, is there?”

“Ms. Adams, if you were in fact simply going to comment on the article, then you would not have ambushed him on camera.” Phil’s voice was level and professional as always, the same tone he would use while speaking to the junior agents who had messed up and needed a gentle but firm reprimand. “What you were doing was sensation journalism at its worst. It isn’t even worthy of the word journalism. They were leading questions with the intent to embarrass and corner Clint into, essentially, publicly outing himself. This interview is over, Ms. Adams. SHIELD will be taking and destroying all of the footage from today, and I’m sure will be having a word with your superiors soon.”

For a brief moment it seemed like the woman was going to try and argue more; her mouth open and shut like a fish out of water once, twice, three times before her jaw set and she simply glared at them both. Phil had successfully and singlehandedly put the kibosh on Ms. Adams’ career. If that didn’t say ‘love’, Clint didn’t know what would.

As the woman turned to storm off, grumbling under her breath about big-headed superheroes and controlling government agencies, Clint let his shoulders drop and his eyes turn to look at Phil. The man was still standing there looking as professional as could be, giving a nod to the agents who’d come with him to start collecting any and all footage. From behind him, the other five members of the team all moved to surround the couple.

“Well, well, well,” Tony tsked, his arms folded over his chest and the magazine still in hand. “For once the paparazzi got it right?”

“Something you boys wanna share with the class?” Bruce’s tone was dry but his eyes were teasing as he stood next to Tony and fiddled with his glasses for a moment before slipping them back into place.

Clint’s heart leaped into his throat as he turned his eyes away from Phil and instead to look at everyone else around them.

“You make a handsome couple, to be sure.” Even Thor was getting in on the gentle ribbing!

Phil’s hand was still on Clint’s shoulder, squeezing it gently and reassuringly as Natasha simply raised an eyebrow at them both. “It’s about time,” was all she said on the matter.

“Uh…we were going to tell you guys, ya know, eventually. We just hadn’t—“

“Clint. It’s alright. We already knew.” Steve was fighting hard to keep his smile from breaking into a full out grin as he loosely folded his arms over his chest.

This was not the reaction Clint had been expecting. While it was no secret among them that Bruce and Tony were more than just ‘science bros’, Clint still felt as if he would be cast out because of his relationship with Phil. Or at the very least, seriously chastised for it. Instead, he was being picked on for not having come clean sooner. His blue-green eyes darted to meet Phil’s greys, only to find them slightly downcast and a small, sheepish smile on his face.

“ _You_ told them?”

“What? No! Agent Agent’s lips have been sealed…usually to yours. Or various parts of you anyway. He didn’t tell us shit.” Tony scoffed, shaking his head as he rolled the trash magazine up and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.

“It was the trend of mornings where both of you appeared in the kitchen in fantastic moods before ever having a cup of coffee that gave ya’s away.”

“Dr. Banner is correct. Many mornings I would find you both in high spirits long before the others had even begun to rise.”

Clint’s eyes widened and his brow furrowed. “That doesn’t mean—“

“You two are practically the walking dead until you’ve had at least one cup of coffee. Either you fellas were having coffee in your own suites or—“

“Or you were having fantastic sex. And since you never came in smelling of coffee and usually suspiciously within seconds of each other, we kind of made our own hypothesis.” Tony shrugged and waved a hand flippantly through the air as he turned to start walking off. “Really, for a master assassin super spy and a top government agent, you two really suck at sneaking around.”

Phil finally lifted his eyes to meet Clint’s. A soft smile was in place as he shook his head and shrugged. “They figured it out on their own.”

“And you didn’t tell me they’d figured it out?”

“I didn’t know until this morning. And then it was only because Happy, of all people, asked about us.” His voice had changed from the commanding tone it usually was while working, back to the soft, gentle tone it took when it was just the two of them.

Clint was sure he was going to have to pick his jaw up off the floor as the others chuckled and patted him on the back before turning to follow Tony. This was definitely not how he’d planned to announce their relationship to the others. At all.

“C’mon Birdseed Brain! We got a tabloid to keep from hittin’ the presses.”

* * *

  
 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take all that much to convince the tabloid publisher not to send their latest copy to print. If by ‘all that much’ one meant a small army of dark-suit-wearing-Ray-Bans-on-at-night angry looking agents, followed by all six Avengers, and Captain Steven G. Rogers’s trademark Disappointed Frown. Then no, it didn’t take all that much convincing.

The weeks that followed were quiet and uneventful, at least as far as tabloid rumors were concerned. The picture of Phil and Clint at the ball game had been destroyed (after Phil had gotten a copy saved to his phone. It was a cute picture!) and there hadn’t been any noise out of Ms. Amelia Adams whatsoever. It was nice. Relaxing to the point that Clint forgot all about how their picture almost wound up on the front page of a magazine at every checkout counter in all the supermarkets across the country. Life was going on as normally as it possibly could for him.

Which was exactly why, one month to the day of their ‘accidental outing’ to the rest of the team, Phil and Clint found themselves leaning into each other at yet another ball game. Clint’s arm was back around Phil’s shoulder, only this time it was the archer who was wearing the ball cap. His eyes were trained on the game below, snapping to see the angle of the bat and the batter’s stance before mentally making a call as to where the ball was going to get fired off to. Nine-out-of-ten times he was right, too. He could accept that.

If he’d been paying attention to what was going on around him, he would have noticed when his and Phil’s faces suddenly appeared on the big screen above left-center field. A cheer went up from the crowd as the man snuggled in next to him lifted his head to look at Clint, the love and adoration obvious on his face. When Clint still didn’t acknowledge, Phil rolled his eyes, shifted to take hold of the front of his lover’s shirt and pulled him in for a steady, firm but non-demanding kiss. That got Clint’s attention.

When the fans around them broke out into wolf-whistles and catcalls, he slowly pulled himself away from the kiss, blinking through the muddled haze to look down into those gorgeous grey eyes he’d fallen so in love with. Phil’s smile was shy but playful as he made a muted nod to his left, the direction of the big screen. Red and pink lights were flashing in a heart around live video feed of both of them and Clint felt his cheeks flushing a soft shade of red.

“We’re gonna have a lot of explaining to do…” He mused quietly, ball cap tilting up as he rested his forehead against Phil’s. Warm breath puffed softly over his lips as his lover shook his head.

“I’m pretty sure this is explanation enough.” Phil responded, his left hand coming up to cup Clint’s cheek, tilting his chin up for another kiss and letting the plain, titanium band around his ring finger glitter like a flash-bulb in the sunlight.

Yeah, the tabloids were going to have a field day with that one. At least if any of them tried to call him ‘Hawkgay’ and embarrass him somehow, he could hold his head high and announce proudly that yes, he was, and he had the most incredible, amazingly badass fiancé to prove it.

 

 

Fini


End file.
